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Walking Commentary

Thoughts while waiting to walk from Manchester to Rome in 2022

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governance

New Normal Diary Wedding

August 22, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

0700

We had coffee and cereal while wanting to watch TV news coverage that isn’t streaming. Our TV service comes streamed via a broadband modem and a set-top box. It’s a frustrating example of technology that’s provided without adequate integration and training of the provider’s workforce. It’s taken a month for an admission that this is a service issue rather than something we’ve done. It’s a very asymmetric relationship between provider and customer. The accounts department will know if a subscriber fails to stream cash on time. The technicians are divided into factional departments who don’t seem to know when the streaming TV service is failing let alone how to fix it.

0800

We read the Irish Times newspaper at the dining table. The so-called Last Supper in Clifden was the dominant news story. Members of a golfing society met and dined in a hotel in celebration of their society’s 50th anniversary. Unfortunately, there were over eighty for dinner at a time when the limit was six. It’s a measure of the confusion of changing pandemic rules that the gathering was attended by people involved in advising, framing and enforcing the rules. It’s becoming a national scandal. A minister and a senator have already resigned and others in key national and international leadership roles are catching a lot of media flack. Perhaps the biggest lesson is not about flaunting pandemic advice or alleged arrogance but national governance. It seems that the society membership includes members of the cabinet, the parliament and the judiciary. This suggests, to the lay observer, that the executive, legislative and judicial functions might not be quite as independent as should be expected in a democratic parliamentary republic.

[Read more…] about New Normal Diary Wedding

Filed Under: Fake Memoir Tagged With: diary, dun laoghaire, governance, irish times, leinster rugby, photos, tv, wedding, zoom

Sound Thinking

April 22, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

Mankind has always communicated with the gods using virtual systems. Prayer and meditation have their basis in introspection. The pandemic obliges if not compels the faithful into remoter collaboration than is normal. I heard a Catholic priest on the radio this morning talking about the sermons he’s giving from his empty churches to a home based congregation. I could accuse his interviewer of trying to make it sound like something new but I know he’s smarter than that. We know that religious broadcasts were scheduled almost as soon as radio was invented and they have enabled a diaspora of sick, elderly and migrated to maintain their worships even if not in co-located flocks. Bells have long served to broadcast the time of day and the times of prayer. Loudspeakers call the faithful to prayer more frequently than to assembly. It’s nothing new to worship and receive instruction and guidance at home but perhaps some think it’s unsavoury to be using a business or entertainment device to commune with their god. Could it be that the computer isn’t as impersonal or trusted a device as a radio or a TV? Thinking between Easter and Ramadan, perhaps there’s a worry that computer is listening too?

[Read more…] about Sound Thinking

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir, ManRom2021 Tagged With: book festivals, booklink, dalkey book festival, dalkey island, governance, killiney, philanthropy

Micromort and big numbers.

April 19, 2020 by Simon Robinson Leave a Comment

I’ve decided to put my trust in the reader and dispense with long introductions and explanations. If you care what a micromort actually is, you’ll follow the links. If you don’t understand big numbers, you’ll be in good company. 

Today is the day we should have reached unorthodox Canterbury after walking out from Manchester on April Fools’ Day. Instead, like so many, I’m curfewed.

[Read more…] about Micromort and big numbers.

Filed Under: Anchoritism, Fake Memoir, ManRom2021 Tagged With: actuary, birds, booklink, computing, Covid-19, daniel kahneman, david eagleman, dinosaurs, geology, geophysics, governance, innumeracy, john berger, pandemic, seo, stephen pinker, the elders, tim harford, walking

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